Triconsonantal Root Systems

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hwhatting
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Post by hwhatting »

Maknas wrote: Like the Reflexive, this could have been its own word at one point, likely meaning something like "make" or "cause". The same thing happened in English, although it didn't expand that far: in Proto-Germanic, the verb "ian" (make) attached to the other of other verbs to make causatives: "fallian" (to cause to fall), "drankian" (to cause to drink) (Don't shoot me - I don't know Proto-Germanic, so I made up some of the forms... this change did actually happen, though).
Where did you get this from? There was no such verb in Germanic that served as basis for the causative; the suffix is already PIE (*-eye/o-). There are some IEanists who want to link this suffix with the root PIE
*(H)ey- "go", but even that's by no means the common opinion.
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Post by Mecislau »

hwhatting wrote:Where did you get this from? There was no such verb in Germanic that served as basis for the causative; the suffix is already PIE (*-eye/o-). There are some IEanists who want to link this suffix with the root PIE
*(H)ey- "go", but even that's by no means the common opinion.
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My book called it "-ian", a form of the IE verb *yo "make".

Actually, it says by the time of Proto-Germanic. So the author's implying this suffix arose sometime between PIE and PG.

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Post by hwhatting »

Maknas wrote: My book called it "-ian", a form of the IE verb *yo "make".

Actually, it says by the time of Proto-Germanic. So the author's implying this suffix arose sometime between PIE and PG.
Which book is that?

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Post by alice »

A thought about all this: If you start with several biconsonantal roots and a few derivational prefixes and suffixes, aren't you going to end up with several triconsonantal roots which have the first or last consonant in common? Do any relics of anything like this survive in modern Semitic?
Zompist's Markov generator wrote:it was labelled" orange marmalade," but that is unutterably hideous.

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Post by Mecislau »

Sorry, missed these...
hwhatting wrote:
Maknas wrote: My book called it "-ian", a form of the IE verb *yo "make".

Actually, it says by the time of Proto-Germanic. So the author's implying this suffix arose sometime between PIE and PG.
Which book is that?
I said earlier: The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher. It's not exactly a *technical* book by any means, but gives a fairly nice outline theory about the origins of language itself, and is full of some good examples of various processes.
geoff wrote:A thought about all this: If you start with several biconsonantal roots and a few derivational prefixes and suffixes, aren't you going to end up with several triconsonantal roots which have the first or last consonant in common? Do any relics of anything like this survive in modern Semitic?
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. Do you mean that, if *sha- may have one been a derivational prefix that merged with the root, there should be many roots still bearing the reflex of this /S/ in the first consonant? Sure.

Although semantic drift'd serve to blur these connections in present times. But, for example, looking through my Hebrew verb book seems to show that a disproportionate amount of roots beginning with D seem to have some sort of 'negative' meaning: worry, infect, destroy, reject, shove, set fire to, pursue, beat, stab, trample, demand...

Connection? Mabye. I really don't know.

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Post by Gomer Kyle »

Was this somthing happening in other branches of PAA as well, or just the Central Semitic langauges like Arabic and Hebrew?

Had these changes from a biconsonantal system to triconsonantal already started when the Central Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew made their split from (I think) West Semitic, or did they only start changing once they had completely broken away?

If anyone could help me figure out about what time this break (from West Semitic to create Central Semitic) this would really help. :mrgreen:

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Post by Mecislau »

EDIT: This post is no longer really relevant, but I'll leave it here anyways. If you want the program for whatever reason, just PM me.









Not sure how much interest this'll be to all of you, but...

Over the last month or so I've been busy working on a little Hebrew verb autoconjugator. As of right now, it can display the infinitive, past, present, and future forms of the binyanim pa`al, pi`el, and hif`il (as well as the pa`al imperatives). I spent many hours trying to get the intricacies of each gizrah (semi-irregular conjugation) programmed in. The complexity is what makes the file size so relatively large. However, I'm certain that this will give an accurate conjugation for 99% of the roots you input. Unless you purposefully try to use a ridiculous non-real root like y-y-y... :?

Anyway, if any of you are interested in having a look, it's available for download at http://www.thegreatsleep.com/serakus/zbb/roots.exe (164KB). Not perfectly user-friendly yet, but I did include a few helpful tips.

Sample output (with '-h-b "love" in binyan pa`al):

Code: Select all

Root: ?-h-b                        // Self-explanatory
                                   //
Infinitive: le?ehov                // 
                                   //
Present:                           //
hu? ?ohev                          // Masc. Sg.
hi? ?ohevet                        // Fem. Sg.
hem ?ohavim                        // Masc. Pl.
hen ?ohavot                        // Fem. Pl.
                                   //
Past:                              //
?ani ?ahavti                       // 1Sg.
?atah ?ahavta                      // 2Sg. Masc.
?at ?ahavt                         // 2Sg. Fem.
hu? ?ahav                          // 3Sg. Masc.
hi? ?ahavah                        // 3Sg. Fem.
?anachnu ?ahavnu                   // 1Pl.
?atem ?ahavtem                     // 2Pl. Masc.
?aten ?ahavten                     // 2Pl. Fem.
hem ?ahavu                         // 3Pl.
                                   //
Future:                            //
?ani ohav                          // 1Sg.
?atah tohav                        // 2Sg. Masc.
?at tohavi                         // 2Sg. Fem.
hu? yohav                          // 3Sg. Masc.
hi? tohav                          // 3Sg. Fem.
?anachnu nohav                     // 1Pl.
?atem tohavu                       // 2Pl. Masc.
?aten tohavu, tohavnah             // 2Pl. Fem.*
hem yohavu                         // 3Pl. Masc.
hen yohavu, tohavnah               // 3Pl. Fem.*
                                   //
Imperative:                        //
?atah ?ehav                        // Masc. Sg.
?at ?ahavi                         // Fem. Sg.
?atem ?ahavu                       // Pl.
bo?/bo?i/bo?u nohav                // 1Pl.**
                                   //
Negative Imperative:               //
?atah ?al tohav                    // Masc. Sg.
?at ?al tohavi                     // Fem. Sg.
?atem ?al tohavu                   // Pl.


Press any key to continue . . .
(I added in comments on the side for explanation of the forms/pronouns, since I assume most of you wouldn't know them without being told.)

* Normally these feminine forms are identical to the masculine ones. However, I have included an older distinct feminine form, which nowadays is recherch? and is limited to 'high-class' speech.

** The First Person Imperative ("Let's ____") is formed using the regular imperative forms of the verb "come" followed by the 1Pl future of the main verb. Therefore you'd use bo? nohav when addressing a man, bo?i nohav a woman, and bo?u nohav to multiple people. Then again, how often are you going to say "Let's love!" to anyone? :|

I'll get to adding more stuff soon. Next will be the imperatives for the other two binyanim, then doing the next five/six binyanim, then adding in the derivations for non-verbs (ie, nominalization, adjectivalization, re-verbalization, etc)



Have fun! :P






Someday I hope to also add in Hebrew script. For the more tech-savvy people here: is it possible to handle both Latin and Hebrew script at the same time in a Command Prompt window? Or would I have to figure out how to build an actual GUI?
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Post by Mecislau »

Well, seeing as no one knows how to get Hebrew encoding to work...



I have a few other little comments to make about Hebrew's triconsonantal system.

Alongside the seven major binyanim discussed earlier (roughly corresponding to active, intensive, causative, reflexive, passive, passive of intensive, and passive of causative) and the "new major binyan" hitpu`al (the passive of reflexive), there are also a dozen-odd "minor binyanim", which only contain a few verbs apiece. Some of them seem very interesting, though, in my opinion.

There is a sizeable collection of so-called "minor binyanim",
which only contain a small set of roots. Many of these are
retentions of older binyanim that are no longer productive,
while some are innovations (like hitpu`al) and others are
dialectical, like nitpa`el. Several of these binyanim are
classified as a variant of a major binyan, while others are
simple considered meyuchad "special".

These minor binyanim include:
* Po`el
* Hitpo`el
* Po`al
* Pi`lel
* Pu`lal
* Pe`al`al
* Pilpel
* Polpal
* Hitpalpel
* Tif`el
* Tuf`al
* Shif`el
* Hishtaf`el
* Pa`el
* Pu`le`
* Nitpa`el
* Hitpu`al
* Myuchedim

Note that some of these take the place of other binyanim. For example, Pa`el is essentially a "replacement" for pa`al (in that no verb with a pa`el form has a pa`al form), but is distinct in that it has distinct rules for what it actually means. The definitions of pa`al and pa`el are quite distinct.


Po`el is a marker of "malicious intent". Note verbs like meloshen "to slander" (from L-SH-N "tongue") or me`oyen "to give the evil eye" (from `-Y-N "eye").

Hitpo`el is its reflexive form, and Po`al is its passive form.

Pi`lel (with a doubling of the final consonant) marks an accidental or temporary condition: ri`nen "refresh", `imlel "sadden".

Pu`lal is its passive form.

Pe`al`al (formed by redoubling the final two consonants) marks several actions done in rapid succession. It likely came from a verb actually being repeated, and then fusing into one: secharchar "palpitate" (from S-CH-R "run about"), chatzotzar "blow a trumpet" (from CH-TZ-R "trumpet" - the first /r/ was lost, but left its mark by changing the previous /a/ to /o/). Other places instead prefer to classify these as five-consonant roots (ie, S-CH-R-CH-R or CH-TZ-R-TZ-R).

Pilpel is formed by doubling a biconsonantal root (or is a distinct quadraconsonantal root - your choice). It also represents repeated actions, and often is based in onomatopoeia: metzaltzel "ring", metziftzef "chirp", mevalbel "confuse, scramble".

Polpal is its passive, and Hitpalpel is its reflexive.

Tif`el is an ancient binyan, one which one was functional but nowadays has all but disappeared. I'm not 100% sure of what its function is, but I think it may have something to do with increasing valency: tirgel "teach to walk, lead" ( < R-G-L "foot"), tichareh "contend with" ( < CH-R-H "be hot").

Shif`el, also an ancient binyan, was likely the predecessor of modern-day hif`il (the causative), as the original /S/ weakened to /h/. A very small set of verbs retained the /S/ for some reason, however: shilhev "inflame, impassion" ( < L-H-B "blaze")

Hishtaf`el is its reflexive form. Or causative. Or something. It's related to shif`el, though.

Pa`el marks a stative verb: yashen "sleep", gadel "grow", rochev "ride" (Rochev is an iffy one - it's like pa`el in all forms but the present). This is actually a relatively large minor binyan, containing many dozens of roots.

Pu`le` (formed by taking the medial consonant to the end) is a very rare passive binyan. I'm not sure of its exact function. chushfesh "be peeled off" ( < CH-SH-P "peel, scale").

Nitpa`el is a dialectical form. Where Israeli Hebrew uses hitpu`al to form the passive of reflexive (formed by combining the reflexive pattern hitpa`el with the vowels of the passive pu`al), Mishnaic Hebrew accomplished the same by merging together the passive binyan nif`al with the reflexive hitpa`el.


And finally the myuchedim", a special class of verbs that technically don't belong into any binyan at all, but are typically listed as pa`al because there's no better place to put them. These include yachol "be able to", tzarich "need", muchrach "must", as well as a few non-grammatical roots. Nagish "approach" is also a meyuchad verb, because if you look at its conjugation, it's both an active and a passive verb at the same time. Don't ask me how that works. I don't get it either, but it's true :?

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Post by Grath »

Nice.

Would mevalbel be related to Babel?

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Post by Xeon »

I'm hoping this hasn't already been asked, but: Is it possible for a Hebrew noun to be derived from a root that has already been conjugated into one of the binyanim? For example, could a noun be derived from the root K-T-V and retain the meaning of the binyan hif'il verb hitkatev ('correspond')?

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Post by Mecislau »

Xeon wrote:I'm hoping this hasn't already been asked, but: Is it possible for a Hebrew noun to be derived from a root that has already been conjugated into one of the binyanim? For example, could a noun be derived from the root K-T-V and retain the meaning of the binyan hif'il verb hitkatev ('correspond')?
Yes and no.

Yes in that there are a few nouns with a binyan, generally those derived directly from the verb. This includes forms such as the שם הפעולה shem hape`ulah, sometimes translated as "gerund", which is a simple nominalization: כתיבה ktivah "writing" (pa`al), התכתבות hitkatvut "correspondence" (hitpa`el), הכתבה hachtavah "dictation" (hif`il), etc.

For the most part, though, nouns do not belong to a distinct binyan.

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Post by Downtimer »

I know absolutely no Hebrew, other than shalom et al. The stuff posted here about triconsonantal root systems is interesting; I might do something like that for my conlang.

What I'm wondering is, how many roots are there? If you can get stuff as diverse as "marriage contract," "word processor," "pen," etc. from the single root KTV ("write"), then there must only be a few thousand roots.

I'm wondering how you make verbs out of verb roots. If, for example, the Hebrew causative pattern is hiCCiC, then how do you conjugate it? Let's use the example of KTV. Then "Hiktiv" is to cause someone to write. How do you conjugate that? How do you get "I caused you to write?"

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Post by Mecislau »

Grath wrote:Would mevalbel be related to Babel?
Ack, sorry I missed this. Yes, it is related.
Downtimer wrote:What I'm wondering is, how many roots are there? If you can get stuff as diverse as "marriage contract," "word processor," "pen," etc. from the single root KTV ("write"), then there must only be a few thousand roots.
Well, it depends what exactly you want to consider a root. If you mean full-fledged roots that can conjugate in multiple binyanim and form a diverse range of nouns, then yes, there's several thousand. My own verb book has only about 520, but there are many more. How many exactly I can't say - I wouldn't be surprised if the number was under 2000.

Then there are many more words (ie, non-verbs) that consist of three consonants and mabye have a few derivations. Many nouns such as "cat", "dog", "milk", and "bread" have three consonants and some derivations, but no verbal form.

Then there are plenty of words with no derivations whatsoever. These include many of the most ancient words in the language, which have never been fitted into the triconsonantal system, such as "father".
Downtimer wrote:I'm wondering how you make verbs out of verb roots. If, for example, the Hebrew causative pattern is hiCCiC, then how do you conjugate it? Let's use the example of KTV. Then "Hiktiv" is to cause someone to write. How do you conjugate that? How do you get "I caused you to write?"
Well, that's only one form. The citation form of a Hebrew verb is the 3rd person singular masculine past (ie, "He ____ed"), which is was "hichtiv" is - "he caused to write"~"he dictated".

Each binyan has a full conjugational system. For example, in binyan pa`al, K-T-B "write" conjuagtes as follows:

Present:
MascSg: kotev
FemSg: kotevet
MascPl: kotvim
FemPl: kotvot

Past:
1Sg: katavti
2SgMasc: katavta
2SgFem: katavt
3SgMasc: katav
3SgFem: katvah
1Pl: katavnu
2PlMasc: katavtem
2PlFem: katavten
3Pl: katvu

Future:
1Sg: echtov
2SgMasc: tichtov
2SgFem: tichtevi
3SgMasc: yichtov
3SgFem: tichtov
1Pl: nichtov
2PlMasc: tichtevu
2PlFem: tichtevu (common), tichtovnah (formal)
3PlMasc: yichtevu
3PlFem: tichtevu (common), tichtovnah (formal)

Imperative:
SgMasc: ktov
SgFem: kitvi
PlMasc: kitvu
PlFem: kitvu (common), ktovnah (formal)

Etc, etc. And each binyan has its own conjugational pattern, so "I caused you to write" (=I dictated to you) would be hichtavti lecha, "hichtavti" means "I caused to write" and "lecha" meaning "to you (MascSg)". Normally direct objects are seperate words, but in formal language can even attach to the verb: "I caused you to write it" = הכתבתיתו לך hichtavtito lecha

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Post by Downtimer »

If there are masculine and feminine forms of the 2nd-person conjugation, what do you do if you don't know the gender of the person you're talking to (e.g. if you're writing a book and need to address the reader)? Do you assume the masculine, or guess based on gender roles, or something else entirely? In a mixed group, do you use the masculine like they do in French?

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Post by Mecislau »

Downtimer wrote:If there are masculine and feminine forms of the 2nd-person conjugation, what do you do if you don't know the gender of the person you're talking to (e.g. if you're writing a book and need to address the reader)? Do you assume the masculine, or guess based on gender roles, or something else entirely? In a mixed group, do you use the masculine like they do in French?
Yes. When uncertain or in mixed groups, the masculine dominates.

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Post by Downtimer »

Another question: Isn't Hebrew usually written without vowels? How do you know if KTVT is kotevet, kotvot, katavti, katavta, katavt, or any of those other forms? It could be the present tense or the past tense. KTV would be even worse, because it could also be the future tense or even a noun. Are the vowels written when it isn't clear, or do you just know it from the context?
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Downtimer wrote:Another question: Isn't Hebrew usually written without vowels? How do you know if KTVT is kotevet, kotvot, katavti, katavta, katavt, or any of those other forms? It could be the present tense or the past tense. KTV would be even worse, because it could also be the future tense or even a noun. Are the vowels written when it isn't clear, or do you just know it from the context?
Originally, yes, Hebrew was written without vowels. The modern form, however, uses the so-called plene spelling system, where the vowels /o/, /u/, and /i/ (and in a few cases, /a/ and /e/ as well) can be represented by consonants in certain situations. /o/ and /u/ share vav (traditionally /v/), /i/ shares yod (/j/), and /a/ and /e/, when marked, use 'alef /?/.

(The spellings are standardized, however, meaning that you can't just choose whether or not you want to mark a given vowel).

So, your examples are spelled as follows:

כותבת kotevet (spelled K-V-T-B-T)
כותבות kotvot (K-V-T-B-V-T)
כתבתי katavti (K-T-B-T-Y)
כתבת katavta (K-T-B-T)
כתבת katavt (K-T-B-T)

The last two here happen to be spelled the same. Context would serve to distinguish them.

Ambiguous spellings do occur in Hebrew quite a bit, but generally context is enough to discern the correct pronunciation. If absolutely necessary, the niqudot (vowel points) may be added to show the exact pronunciation, but this is avoided if at all possible.

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Post by Soap »

I have heard that Baalzebul is Biblical Hebrew for "prince Baal", and Baalzebub for "Baal of flies". Yet the Baal part remains the same in both of them. Does that mean the first one is literally something like "Baal of Princes"?
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Post by Bryan »

This may or may not be worth mentioning, but in classical Arabic, the syllable structure was CV(C)(C) [that is, the first C ain't optional].

Of course, bear in mind that Arabic is a triconsonantal system...

:)

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Post by Mecislau »

Mercator wrote:I have heard that Baalzebul is Biblical Hebrew for "prince Baal", and Baalzebub for "Baal of flies". Yet the Baal part remains the same in both of them. Does that mean the first one is literally something like "Baal of Princes"?
I'd say your translation is a bit off. Wikipedia gives the translation for "Baalzebul" as "Lord of the High Place" or "Lord of the Temple".
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Post by Mecislau »

Bryan wrote:This may or may not be worth mentioning, but in classical Arabic, the syllable structure was CV(C)(C) [that is, the first C ain't optional].

Of course, bear in mind that Arabic is a triconsonantal system...

:)
Same in Hebrew. An initial glottal stop is required if no other consonant is present (with the one exception that initial ve- 'and' lenites to /u/ in certain circumstances.

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Post by Salmoneus »

Mercator: confusingly, "Ba'al" is/was both a title and a name. Its as though Christians called Jehovah 'the Lord', but called each angel "Lord of such-and-such" - and then the people connected with a particular angel called just called him '"the lord" when it was clear Jehovah wasn't meant.

This, I'm told, makes it very confusing for historians, because it's very hard to work out which Ba'als are the same and which are different!

Furthermore, the other names given to the Ba'als often ALSO meant 'lord', 'king', 'ruler', 'the one to be sacrificed to', and so on, and could probably also be used as titles to be applied to either other gods (including other Ba'als) OR human rulers!

AND said names were sometimes the actual or ceremonial names of human rulers, as well as their titles!

Hence the ensuing tangle of countless Ba'als, Els, Milcoms, Molechs, Asteroths and Melqarts is rather confusing.

Additionally, it is thought now that the hebrews misreported many of the names, either due to incompetance or due to ideology. For instance, many of the names of foreign gods and practices apparently have had the vowels changed to match those of the word for 'shame' [how that ties in with triconsonentalism and the non-spelling of vowels, I don't know]. It's now thought, eg, that Molech and Milcom may have been the same originally (not similar consonants). Then again, same with Melqart (since I've seen Milcom as Milqom).



The main Ba'als that we talk about now, by the way, are Ba'al meaning El, Ba'al meaning some sort of companion of El, Ba'al Hammon the old lord of Carthage, and Melqart the Ba'al of Tyre.

The second Ba'al, when combined with El, was referred to as Elohim. He may have been the same as Adonai.
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Post by Rodlox »

Maknas wrote: To give an example of this, I'll use the root *K-T-V ("write").

If the pattern CoCeC (masc sg pres verb) is applied, it becomes kotev, meaning "I/You/He/She write(s)". The pattern CoCCim (masc pl pres verb) makes it kotvim "We/Y'all/They write". These exact same patterns can be applied to almost any root with the same result:
tiny question: how can you tell if something is a paired consonant or not?

ie, how do you distinguish if....*makes one up*...ktevim is [k][t] or [kt]

does that make sense?
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Post by hwhatting »

Rodlox wrote: tiny question: how can you tell if something is a paired consonant or not?

ie, how do you distinguish if....*makes one up*...ktevim is [k][t] or [kt]

does that make sense?
I don't know whether I get you right here...
As far as I can see, there are no consonant clusters in roots, at least in Arabic, i.e. there are no roots that would be *kt-b-m (there's no /v/ in Standard Arabic). If you have a word X-kt-Y, with X and Y being consonants, this is either from a root x-k-t plus suffix Y or from a root k-t-Y with prefix X. It would normally not be from a root x-kt-Y (there are 4-consonant roots, but theyr're very rare).
I hope that's what you wanted to know.
Best regards,

Hans-Werner

Rodlox
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Post by Rodlox »

hwhatting wrote:
Rodlox wrote: tiny question: how can you tell if something is a paired consonant or not?

ie, how do you distinguish if....*makes one up*...ktevim is [k][t] or [kt]

does that make sense?
I don't know whether I get you right here...
As far as I can see, there are no consonant clusters in roots, at least in Arabic, i.e. there are no roots that would be *kt-b-m (there's no /v/ in Standard Arabic). If you have a word X-kt-Y, with X and Y being consonants, this is either from a root x-k-t plus suffix Y or from a root k-t-Y with prefix X. It would normally not be from a root x-kt-Y (there are 4-consonant roots, but theyr're very rare).
I hope that's what you wanted to know.
it helps very much.

ah...I think I understand now:

if there is, say, kb-m, you know its from k-t-m (and not a new root of kt-m) because there's no clustering.

is that a good description?
MadBrain is a genius.

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